I don’t know if many of you will know the name Karl Sim. He
is a well-known New Zealand artist who died in 2013 at the age of 89. Do any of you have one of his paintings...? well you may have you just might not know it. When I
said well known I don’t mean famous rather infamous. You see Carl Sim is possibly
New Zealand most well-known art forger.
In one interview he gave there was a list of well over fifty
famous painters whose work he had forged. They were the ones he could remember.
He came to notoriety in the mid 1980’s
when he was convicted on forty charges of forging Goldie and Petrus van der
Veldun paintings. He was fined $1,000 and made to paint the Foxton town hall
and public toilets as part of his 200 hours community service. Not paint a
picture of them but paint the buildings themselves. He changed his name to Carl
Feodore Goldie so he could legitimately sign his Goldie paintings without fear
of prosecution. When he moved up to Orewa an antique dealer bought his Foxton
flat and made it into an antique shop called Goldie’s Junk n’ disorderly so
that Goldies memory would live on in the town. In one of his last Orewa shows there
was a rather well-done Mona Lisa signed by C F Goldie.
It’s interesting that copying the masters and their works
wasn’t considered a crime until art work became such an expensive commodity. It
was rather seen as a way for budding artists to learn their craft. To learn the
technique and brush strokes of the masters and so get better. When they tried to
pass off their copies as the real thing it stopped being learning and became
fraud. However George Bernard Shaw says “imitation is not just the greatest form
of flattery it’s the sincerest form of learning”. In the passage we read from
Philippians three today Paul tells his readers new believers in a fledgling
church to imitate him as the way to forge ahead to Maturity in Christ.
This winter we are working our way through Paul’s letter to
the church at Philippi. A letter where he thanks the Church for their concern
for him and gift to him while he is in Prison. It’s a letter where Paul
encourages the church to stand firm in the faith and to find joy in knowing and
being known by Jesus Christ. The same encouragement Paul gives to us as we
stand firm on our joyous journey following Jesus.
As I said before in the passage we are looking at today Paul
exhorts the church to follow his example, to imitate him as an example of
Christian maturity. Paul had done this
in the tail end of a section where he is warning the Church against false teaching.
A group who were teaching ‘Christ Plus’ that for gentiles to be put right with
God they needed not only to believe in Jesus Christ but they needed to be
circumcised and keep the law of Moses. Paul had refuted that putting the focus
totally on what Christ had done for us. In doing that he had talked of his own
religious privileges, being born a Jew of Hebrew parents and achievements,
being a strict Pharisee who kept the law and said they were like rubbish to be
tossed away compared to the surpassing greatness of Knowing Christ.
It might be easy for
people to think Paul is telling them to imitate him because he is perfect that
he doesn’t do anything wrong, that he has made it spiritually, but that is not
the case. In fact Paul is very quick to let people know that he hasn’t made it
he is not perfect, from the enemies of the cross that Paul talks of in this passage whose God is their stomachs and who
glory in their shame, he is very cautious not to fall in to another false
teaching that had effected the church at Corinth, that because we are put right
with God by Jesus Christ, that we are perfect, we’ve made it spiritually and
that what we do with our bodies has no impact on that. That our faith in Christ
does not need to be reflected in our behaviour. It’s called antinomianism, it
means that no laws apply. Paul equally refutes that.
So what is it that Paul is wanting people to imitate as a
way of forging ahead to maturity? It isn’t his moral perfection but rather his
journey to spiritual maturity. It’s not a moral and spiritual perfectionism,
but rather coming to the place of discerning what is Godly wisdom and what is
earthly wisdom and to follow the former and not the later. That is maturity.
Firstly, for Paul that forging ahead for maturity is not working for our salvation rather it is working out our salvation. Paul is
steadfast as we saw last week on the fact that it is only Jesus Christ and what
Christ has done that puts us right with God.
His spiritual journey is to take hold of Christ because Christ took hold
of him. That encounter on the Damascus road told three times in the book of
Acts is central for Paul. He tells the church in v20 that our citizenship is in
heaven, that our life is eagerly awaiting a saviour to come the Lord Jesus
Christ. We have those things because of Christ. The journey he is one is the
upward calling of Jesus Christ. it is the journey fo his life to reflect Jesus
in all he does. Because he knows Jesus more and more.
The second thing for Paul is that paradoxically, the only
people who can become spiritually mature are the people who realise that they
haven’t got there yet. Not that I have obtained all this says Paul in verse 12
or have already arrived. That’s the first step to know where we are and that we
need to keep growing. That change needs to happen. I am preaching through the
Psalms of ascent at the services I take up at Edmund Hilary Retirement Village.
They are a collection of fourteen Psalms that were used by pilgrim’s coming to
the three religious festivals at
Jerusalem, they were said to be said one on each of the fourteen steps up to
the temple. The first one Psalm 120 speaks of a holy discontent, that is no
willing to live amongst the tents of the people who are not for peace. Who find
their security in wealth and military might. It’s a willingness to move on from
there and grow. In the news this week we’ve heard of the retirement of Lauren
Boyle one of the New Zealand’s greatest swimmers, for her its been coming to
the hard decision that because of a hip injury she can no longer keep her own standards
at training that allow her to compete. She said that she will contribute to
swimming in a new way. It’s a sign of maturity that it’s time for change. This
week I’ve also found myself being challenged about areas of my Christian life
and walk that I need to work on, I didn’t want to preach on this passage
because it speaks to me. In our Christian life it’s easy to cruise or just
plateau and be happy walking on the flat land, rather than the upward call of
Christ Jesus…
The next thing Paul says s that he does not look at what is
behind him… here is using the imagery from the Olympics of a runner who keeps
looking behind them and loses sight of the goal. In our spiritual journey it’s
easy to have our eyes focused behind us. Theologically its easy to look back at
and thing all this Jesus stuff was way back then and over there, and not see
that Jesus invites us to move forwards towards him. The focus of the passage in
Philippians is not the past but the future. Our lives are seen as living in
eager anticipation of the coming of Christ. Our hope is that we have a saviour
coming for us. That Christ will bring everything under his control and
transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorified body. The Modern Church does not handle the return
of Christ that well. We either are rather embarrassed with this belief, we
identify it with the weird tramp on the corner with the sign saying ‘the end is
nigh’ or the preachers who tie bible prophecy down so much they have a date! Which
invertible passes by or we find ourselves wrapped up in fights over the where,
the when and the how. If I can bamboozle you for a minute with all the
theological catagories… Pre-millennialists, Amillennials, post-millennialists
and pan millennialists. But it is when the church has a healthy understanding
of Christ’s immanent return that it is at its most vibrant, that it is most
about Christ’s justice in this world. Our communion service is an excellent illustration
of this; It is a remembering of what Christ has done for us in the past, it is
a way of us knowing of Christ’s abiding presence with us, as we meet Christ in
the bread and the wine, and it is a meal of hope as we look towards sitting
down with Christ face to face. Our hope in the past, our hope for now and our
hope that leads us into the future.
But it is also that we can look back and see the that can
trip us up and keep us from focusing on that hope… the “shoulda, coulda, woulda”
, that can slow us down burden us we regret. The only if, and what if, and if
it hadn’ts that seem to knock the stuffing out of us and sap our energy. Our achievements
so far and our falls and failings. We forget that says Paul, we can forget it
because in Christ there is forgiveness and reconciliation and we move on.
Paul then uses the language of athletics and military
conflict to talk say we put our energy into moving forward. He speaks of
straining, pressing on to grab hold of Christ who grabbed hold of us, of living
up to what we already have obtained. If
you go into book stores these day or rather go on line and scroll through the
pages of electronic books you’ll find many self-help books. They have ways of moving forward by setting goals and
finding mentors to help you on the journey, and helpful hints and practises.
But Paul first and foremost is real to say that it takes effort. It’s kind of
like Gym memberships in the new year, and I am speaking from personal
experience here, its easy to start out with the greatest of intentions and well as the year rolls on and February comes
along its easy to slip back into old routines and old ways.
Paul balances talking of effort by talking of who it is we
should focus on. The focus is on Christ. To keep our eyes on him, to be about
conforming our lives to his. The great thing is that as we move forward Christ
is with us to help us on the way. We have God’s spirit within us to keep us
going.
The other thing is that Paul does encourage us to find
mentors of models that we can imitate. That there are personal trainers of the
way. I’ve really found my supervisor beneficial and I specifically chose him
because of his expertise in an area that I know is one of my weaknesses, I’ve
really benefited as he has worked me though that area. He’s finished his PHD
and is moving to Wellington and so I’m going to have to look for a new one.
I’ve been dreading it actually. But as I have been confronted by another area
of life I need to work on I came to the realisation that here is a chance to
actually find someone who can put some effort in with me on that area, like my
old supervisor has in the other area. Can I say I’ve got lots of weaknesses. An
example of Christ working and me going through this process that Paul is
speaking of.
Paul gives a good warning about the people we should not
emulate as well. He calls them enemies of the Cross. People whose God is their
stomach, whose glory is their shame, speaking of people with shonky morals.
Whose minds are set on earthly things. They are the opposite of what we are
looking for. Not that we are looking for perfect people, we want people on the
same road to maturity that we are but who like Paul have a single minded Zeal
and an absorbing desire to be with and
like Christ.
The second is that while we work away and toil away in our
lowly bodies, when our saviour comes he will subdue all things and we will be
transformed to be like him. As we forge ahead on our upward calling to be more
like Christ in our lives he by his power will make us the real deal.
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